the signet Library’s long 18th century 1722-1837

The ws Society Summer Exhibition 2022

5-7 July 2022

Introduction

The WS Society’s first in-person exhibition in three years tells the story from the Signet Library’s Georgian birth through its first Golden Age at the height of the Scottish Enlightenment.

Drawing on new research and previously unpublished archive material, the exhibition examines the Signet Library’s first century, from its beginning in 1722 as a purely professional working collection of legal books and papers.

By the second half of the eighteenth century the Scottish Enlightenment was in full flood, and the arrival of a new Deputy Keeper of the Signet in 1778, the lawyer, antiquarian and author John Davidson, saw the transformation of a private, professional collection of legal texts into an internationally-famous universal Enlightenment library of all subjects housed in two of the most magnificent reading rooms in Europe. Under the leadership of the first of the Signet Library’s famous scholar-librarians, Macvey Napier, the collection grew forty-fold and attracted researchers and writers from England, Europe and the Americas, with its culture and practice informing library development worldwide for a century.

The Exhibition will be formed of six parts.

The Birth and Growth of the Signet Library 1722-1778

The Signet Library was born in the midst of a renaissance of Scottish legal writing and thought. Beginning with the Signet Library’s “Genesis Document”, Edinburgh bookseller Alexander Symmer’s book bill of 1723, the display will include many of the WS Society’s very earliest acquisitions and will examine their place in the intellectual and professional world of early Enlightenment Edinburgh.

John Davidson WS and the Enlightenment Library 1778-1797

In 1778, the new Deputy Keeper of the Signet John Davidson WS led a dramatic shift in policy which saw the WS Society begin the collecting of “the best editions that were to be procured (..) with a view to the gradual formation of a general Library.” A triumvirate of Writers to the Signet were the driving force behind the Library’s growth during this period: Davidson himself, historian William Tytler WS of Woodhouselee and David Erskine WS. On display for the first time will be the WS Society’s earliest known library catalogue, the holograph handlist of 1778-1785, along with many examples of the important and beautiful books present in the list. The deep connections between the lawyers of the Writers to the Signet and the wider life and culture of their country, their society and the wider world is shown through some of the many fine donations made by Writers to the Signet during this period, alongside letters, poems and manuscripts. This was a period of expansion and growth, evidenced by the pioneering New Town architect James Craig’s plans for the grand enlargement and extension of the home of the collections in Writers Court.

Interregnum and Recovery: the Age of George Sandy 1797-1805

With the death of John Davidson in 1797, the WS Society lost the last of the inspiring triumvirate who had carried the Society’s book collecting throughout the height of the Scottish Enlightenment. In 1800, pioneer legal reporter and Writer to the Signet Robert Bell issued a rallying call, reviving the Society’s ambitions and intentions for its library and beginning the Society’s search for a new home worthy of its status as a home of Enlightenment living and thought. In 1804, Writer to the Signet George Sandy instigated a root-and-branch reform of the Library. Within a year he had created and published the first major classified library catalogue in Scotland, a volume that attracted praise from the British Museum and that was used in its great Bloomsbury Reading Room for over a century. George Sandy was an eye-witness to the Scottish Enlightenment and the building of the New Town and his youthful diary of 1788 will be on display with a digitization and transcription of this remarkable journal released online.

The Signet Library’s Golden Age – the Librarianship of Macvey Napier 1805-1837

Macvey Napier was a lawyer, a Writer to the Signet, the editor of multiple editions of the Encyclopedia Britannica and the Editor of the Edinburgh Review. Under Napier, the Signet Library became known by that name for the first time, and it was his energy and determination that saw the collection realise its Golden Age, housed in superb new premises filling the entire southern side of the new Parliament Square and attracting readers and scholars from around the world. Part of Napier’s greatness as a leader was his choice of lieutenants. This included the inspired choice of William Stark as the architect to finish the new buildings. Stark’s letters about the project and his sole surviving drawing of the Library will be on display. Napier was also responsible for the appointment of Thomas Shiells whose library catalogues would be an inspiration to libraries of all kinds in every part of the world. This was the greatest era of Signet Library collecting and on display will be some of the greatest treasures garnered from Napier’s travels through the auctions and booksellers of Europe, alongside examples of Napier’s own letters and works.

Sir Walter Scott at the Signet Library

Sir Walter Scott was the son of a great Writer to the Signet and was one of the most important figures in the building of the Signet Library as we see it today. The Signet Library is fortunate to possess a collection of vital Scott material, including manuscript letters, a manuscript poem and biography, and the Library’s greatest treasure, the manuscript of The Bride of Lammermoor, which will be exhibited in its own specially-made display case. Also on exhibition will be the account books and ledgers of the Ballantyne publishing company whose collapse in 1826 began the financial struggles which would beset Scott for the rest of his days. The Library owns one of very few contemporary copies of Sir Walter Scott’s death mask, which will be on public exhibition for the first time.

The Treasures of the Signet Library

The exhibition will conclude with a selection of the Library’s most remarkable books, maps, and artworks, many of which will be on display for the first time, and with every part of the Signet Library’s collections represented.

The Signet Library’s treasures are much more than bibliographical jewels and collector’s delights: they are a living memorial to the craft, skills and brilliance of generations of engravers, bookbinders, papermakers, cartographers and editors, and a lesson to the modern day about what is possible through inspiration, determination and commitment.